Monroe County courthouse on February 19, 2017
Monroe County was created in 1854 by the state legislature. The new county was created from the eastern part of La Crosse county. Monroe County is named after James Monroe who was the fifth President of the United States, which makes Monroe County one of Wisconsin’s Presidential Counties.
Sparta is the county seat. It is located on the La Crosse River and was named for the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta. While the person who named the settlement is well-known (“Grandma” Petit, a member of the founding family of the town) nobody seems to know exactly why she chose name of Sparta. Fort McCoy is located not too far from Sparta.
The other city in Monroe County is Tomah. I don’t know much about Tomah except that it is located “where the I splits” as the saying goes. This is where Interstate 94 splits from Interstate 90.
Fort McCoy is located in Monroe County. It is a fairly large Army installation.
The Monroe County courthouse is located at 112 South Court Street in Sparta. The original building was constructed in 1895 or 1896. I visited Sparta on Sunday February 19, 2017. It was a beautiful sunny and warm day for my visit to Monroe County, and my first ever visit to the city of Sparta. The courthouse is very striking and located in a grouping of older buildings. Monroe County is constructing a new Justice Center which runs behind the existing courthouse. They’ve done a very good job of making the new building fit in with the older buildings.
Nearby is the Sparta City Hall, the Post Office, the Public Library, the Monroe County admin building and the Deke Slayton Space and Bicycle Museum. Sparta claims to be the bicycling capital of America and of cours eis one of the endpoints of the Elroy to Sparta bicycle trail. Deke Slayton was one of the original Mercury astronauts. Unfortunately for him, a heart murmur kept him grounded until the Apollo-Soyuz joint mission in 1975. I really enjoyed visiting Sparta and someday I will have to return to ride on the bike trails.
I do not really have a lot of memories associated with Monroe County. I have driven through it on the Interstate heading for Eau Claire many times and once back in the 1980s, heading for Rochester Minnesota, but I’ve never stopped in the county before this visit to Sparta.